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Devil's in the Details
In the three years since, it has become just another daily pain that he'd had to learn to deal with. One of those small but ever present reminders of the hole left in his life by his best friend's absence.
It doesn't matter how many times it happens. He could be anywhere; walking down the street, waiting at a bus stop, calling the next patient at the clinic, looking round the supermarket, and there it would be. A ghost. His mind seems to latch onto any similar characteristic; style and colour of clothing, manner of movement, general appearance; his breath stalls and his eyes jump immediately to the figure before he can stop himself. It's never Sherlock. Of course it's never him, Sherlock Holmes is buried under six feet of earth. He should know he visits the graveside often enough. Yet every time a ghost appears his heart clenches painfully as after every stuttered pause, he remembers.
...
All these years later and they still manage to catch his eye; a woman in the bus shelter with a coat like his friend's, a man in the supermarket with his dark wavy hair, a stranger on the street with his stride. It has eventually worn him down, causing him to sink further into himself.
Then today, an old man bumped into him on the corner. Looking up he's met with eyes staring back at him. Eyes so like Sherlock's that he flinches, apologising, and moving quickly away. Just another ghost. But unlike all of the others, this one does not disappear.
He sees the same man again later in the street, and then, that night, he arrives on his doorstep. This man who has eyes just like his friend's. They look at him, so familiar, seeming to beg him to listen, to understand. Fearing to be left out, trapped once again, but this time forever.
And for a moment he hesitates, wondering. Then for the first time in so many years he hears that voice. Never have any of his imagined ghosts spoken, and he'd that swear no-one else could ever sound quite the same.
"John?"
"... Sherlock."